Accessibility

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QUT Library supports the University's commitment to ensuring that its web sites are available to all users.

Accessibility testing has been undertaken to determine our compliance with the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. Our aim is to meet "A" standard and incorporate levels of "AA" and "AAA" where possible. The site will be reviewed regularly as part of QUT Library's usability and accessibility testing processes. However, if you should have any difficulty using Pilot, please contact us. Several accessibility features of the Pilot service are described below:

• Text size
• Screen resolution
• Screen readers
• Macromedia Flash animations
• Shortcut (access) keys

Text size

The text on this website has been designed to allow you to use browser controls to resize it to whatever size works best for you.

• For Internet Explorer users: from the menu bar select View - Text Size, and choose a suitable text size.
• For Firefox and Mozilla-based browser users: from the menu bar select View - Text Size, and choose a suitable text size.
• For Netscape 4 users: from the menu bar select View - Increase Font or Decrease Font.

Text too small?

There is a known text resizing problem that affects some users of QUT web sites. This is due to a clash between the web browser Internet Explorer and Eudora (an E-mail application). This affects computers where Eudora is set to use Microsoft's Viewer. Each time Eudora is opened it automatically changes Internet Explorer's text size from Medium to Small, which causes problems with web sites that use relative text sizing.

Solution: You will need to change Eudora's text size to Medium (from the menu bar, select: Tools - Options - Fonts - Screen, and set Size to Medium). Then, change Internet Explorer's text size to Medium (from the menu bar, select: View - Text Size - Medium).

Screen resolution

The Pilot service is optimised for display at screen resolutions of 800x600 and above. Its core functionality has been tested for cross-browser compatibility in a range of smaller standard window sizes. In manual compliance testing the AnyBrowser.com emulator, Vision Australia's AIS Web Accessibility Toolbar, and other utilities were used.

If suitable, the use of a 1024x768 (or higher) screen resolution is recommended when viewing the Pilot tutorial. This is due to the nature of the information conveyed and the demonstrations of live functionality in subscribed databases, etc.

Some multimedia elements, particularly Macromedia Flash demonstrations, will default to a larger resolution. If you have an 800x600 resolution monitor you will need to click on the [options] link where provided, and then select the smaller viewing option from the resulting page.

Alternatively (if suitable) you may choose to increase the resolution on your monitor. In Windows operating systems,

1. Click Start then Control Panel
2. Double click the Display icon
3. Click the Settings tab

Towards the bottom left hand side of the dialogue there is a slider control with the current screen resolution shown underneath it. Drag the slider to the right using the mouse to a higher resolution (e.g. 1024x768).

Macromedia Flash animations

All embedded Flash objects on this site are speakable by screenreaders (such as JAWS) for the blind or visually impaired. Descriptive alternative text has been assigned to a top-level element only within the object. The alternative text information is provided within the spoken cues: "Macromedia Flash movie start" and "Macromedia Flash movie end".

Access to controls are generally not provided as these rely highly on user input based on the screen displays.

The only exception is the Flash navigational menu on the Pilot home page. Here, the links are given text equivalents and can be selected using the tab and enter keys.

Screen readers

The core sections of this web site have been tested with the screenreader JAWS 7.0 for Windows, in conjunction with Internet Explorer version 6.0.

Text transcripts

Text transcripts are provided for all demonstrations on the site that are not readily accessible to screenreaders. To access the text transcripts, follow the "options" link where provided.

Recommended links settings

By default, the JAWS screenreader reads the screen text for links. You may wish to change this setting as you enter different areas of the Pilot site. You can change this setting in several ways: temporarily, by site, or permanently. Please refer to the JAWS help documentation for more assistance.

Shortcut keys

A number of shortcut keys (also known as access keys) are provided on this website. These keyboard combinations allow you to navigate quickly to a number of frequently used parts of the site. A list of shortcut keys is available in the technical help documentation, or via the shortcut keys link in the footer of each page in Pilot.